Sep
21
2011
I made it to the State Fair twice this year. I went once on a Friday to see Maroon 5 with Jill. Then on the last day of the Fair I went with my Mom. I met up with Derrick, Jen, and Evie. We ran into Sara, Shawn, and Cousin Amy. Here are some pictures from those trips:

Jill in front of the picture of her at the Photography Salon.

Jill with her turkey leg.

The damage she did to that turkey leg.

Even though Jill is a Legacy Member of the Maroon 5 Fan Club, she felt our seats could have been better…

I thought that they were pretty good.








For some reason, Maroon 5 played before Train. Don’t know why, but at least we didn’t have to endure Train.






Evie loves baby animals!


Evie is a toe wiggler!


Evie supports winners!

We heard the following at this stand a lot: “1 fried butter on a stick and a bottle of water, please!”


You can’t imagine how hard it was for me NOT to photoshop that terrible Hawk logo out of this picture, but trust me, despite what his wardrobe is telling the world, Shawn is a good guy. He just doesn’t know how to dress.

With the 2nd Place Picture

With the Honorable Mention Picture

Some people view this as impressive.
Looking forward to next year’s fair already!
Sep
11
2011
These are the pictures I entered in the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest and the person that selected the picture:

Derrick Gorshe

Jen Gorshe

Russell Kennerly

Dawn Krause

Scottie D.

Rebecca Peterson
Thanks to everybody who took their time and energy to select pictures for me this year!
The picture that Dawn chose got 2nd Place in Black & White. My original intent for next year’s selectors was to bring back all of the people that had chose an award winning photo in the past few years, but my fire for photo contests has kind of been extinguished. Not that I might not reconsider, but I think that this might have been my last photo contest. Or at the very least the last time I enter the Pufferbilly Days Photo Contest.
Aug
24
2011
As you may recall, I like to check in on some statistics every 100 posts or so to see how things are doing in popularity. However, this statistical check-in will mark the end of an era. I am officially retiring the Snapshots Gallery and the Artistic Gallery.
The advent of the store has made them obsolete and why bother with galleries where you can’t buy anything, right Andree Jauhari, Marla Gorshe, and Jennifer Wohlgemuth of Minnesota! Right. Right?
Therefore, the only gallery that will remain is the Store. Check it out:
So here are the final rankings of the 10 most popular pictures in the Artistic Gallery. For the record, these are heavily skewed by spammers:

1. 669 Views

2. 497 Views

3. 410 Views

4. 375 Views

5. 352 Views

5. 352 Views

7. 351 Views

8. 350 Views

8. 350 Views

8. 350 Views
Here are the 10 most popular pictures from the Snapshots Gallery. Data heavily skewed by spammers.

1. 2010 Labor Day – 915 Views

2. Jesse & I Netting My Trees – 643 Views

3. Derrick & a Gunderburger – 245 Views

4. Tailgating Games – 229 Views

5. Baier & I at Chiefs Game – 169 Views

6. Shannon & I at an Inebriated Saints Show – 89 Views

7. Shannon in Backbone – 54 Views

8. Holding the White Trash Elixir – 49 Views

9. Brandon Tailgating – 45 Views

10. Gunderburger! – 43 Views
Here is the list of the ten people that have contributed (in some way shape or form) to this blog the most in the first 1199 entries. Plus how many entries they have been in since we last looked at these numbers. Plus where they were the last time we looked at these numbers.
1. Jesse – 174 – +9 – 1
2. Jay - 165 – +13 – 2
3. Shannon – 153 – +6 – 3
4. Derrick – 138 – +14 – 4
5. Jen – 124 – +16 – 6
6. Teresa – 118 – +9 – 5
7. Sara – 112 – +15 – 8
8. Willy – 110 – +8 – 7
9. Vest – 95 – +14 – 9
10. Carla – 84 – +10 – NR
10. Mom – 84 – +17 – NR
Who are the 3 greatest movers outside of the Top Ten?
1. Dad – +16
2. Jill – +14
3. Evie – +6
Thanks to this group of friends and family for their consistent efforts in aiding me in my photographic pursuits, either through assisting, modeling, inspiring, listening, or just being around a whole lot. I couldn’t do what I do with out them. And so many other people too!
Jul
27
2011
Back in the middle of June I made a trip to Minnesota with Jim. There were several great moments on the trip, but I will just cover two of the events in this entry.
The first is a tale of when I went to see Super 8 with Jill. Since I’m slightly too lazy to re-write this small adventure, I’m just going to copy and paste from an email I sent Jen.
On Saturday, Jill and I went to see Super 8 at the Mall of America Theater. Why the Mall of America Theater? Because it was the closest theater to Eagan that Jill knew about.
As I was buying the tickets for the show, the woman at the box office asked me if I wanted the “Dbox seats”. I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but there was a sign on the box office that said something about VIP seats and that got you access to beer and wine. I assumed that is what “Dbox seats” were and we didn’t need access to beer and wine. So I told her that regular seats were fine.
The tickets were 6 bucks a piece, which I though was cheap considering that the last time we went to a movie, it was $10 a piece. But, I figured that maybe we got matinee prices since it was a Saturday and it was somewhat in the afternoon.
We were nearly late to the theater as the line for the concession stand was slow moving and going to the movie was kind of a late decision based on the fact that it was raining. So when we got to the theater most of the good seats were already taken. However, there were a couple of seats available in the back row. So we sat in the back row.
We hadn’t been situated for more than a few seconds when an usher approached us and asked to see our tickets. I handed them over and she said, “It would cost you an extra 8 bucks to sit there. You can sit in the blue seats.”
It was then that I noticed that we were sitting in a red seat. The last 8 rows of the theater were all red seats.
Most of the blue seats that were in the middle of the theater that weren’t smashed up against the screen were taken, so we took some side seat and watched the movie from a weird angle.
So here is the object lesson from this story. I will not be going to a movie at the Mall of America Theater again. A theater that has 1st and 2nd class seats.
The second event was going to Target Field to watch the Padres play. It was the first time I’ve ever seen the Padres play, so that was exciting. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Target Field

Bethany & Becca negotiating for a beer. Bethany was turned down because one of Minnesota’s Mickey Mouse Laws.

The coolest thing in Target Field

Target Field

More Target Field

Nate and Jim

If you look closely, you can see Nate, Becca, and Bethany in this picture. They are in the 2nd row from the top.

Another view of Target Field

If you look closely… Clue: Nate is wearing a yellow hat.

Venable

Maybin

Denorfia

Maybin Again

Meeting on the Mound

End of the Day for Moseley

Outfield Meeting

Adams

Some Twin
Next Wednesday’s random photo collection will be from my fence building project.